In recent years, the rapid growth of the Internet and other computer networks has fueled an equally fantastic growth in the use of computers as everyday communications devices for both individuals and businesses. Such widespread and growing use has led to the generation and accumulation of vast amounts of digital data. This, in turn, has spurred scientists and engineers to develop specialized subsystems, such as storage-area networks, for managing and storing data.
A storage-area network (SAN) is a high-speed subnetwork of shared data-storage devices, such as disk and tape drives. These networks are particularly advantageous not only because they spare other servers in a larger network, such as corporate intranet, from the burden of storing and managing large amounts of data, and thus allow use of these servers for other higher priority uses, but also because they facilitate data consolidation, which allows users to exploit economies of scale. Moreover, a group of storage devices can be logically partitioned into private storage areas, called zones, with the access to each zone restricted to certain users or computer systems.
Some storage-area networks (SANs) are structured so that an end-user or client-computer can access data on one or more target storage devices through a storage router and a separate Fibre Channel switch. (Fibre Channel generally refers to a serial data-transfer architecture and communications standard developed by a consortium of computer and storage-device manufacturers for use with high-speed mass-storage devices and other peripherals, particularly via optical fiber interconnects.) The Fibre Channel (FC) switch converts data received from the storage router to a Fibre Channel-compliant protocol, such as FC-AL (Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop) standard, and directs the converted data via high-speed electrical or optical fiber lines to the proper target devices.
However, the present inventor has recognized that conventional storage-area networks, such as those that use separate FC switches and storage routers, present increased complexities and costs related to maintaining and restoring a zoning configuration. For example, administrators of these networks may be forced to manually and separately reconfigure the zoning defined in a FC switch in the event of a system failure. This can be problematic because the zoning configuration may be configured by different entities independently of the administrator, making it even more difficult, time-consuming, and costly to perform the restoration.
Accordingly, the present inventor has recognized a need to reduce the cost and complexities associated with maintaining storage-area networks, particularly restoring zoning configurations.